1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to improved power operated shears that are useful for industrial cutting applications. In particular, the improved shears of the present invention are suitable for use in the food processing industry to cut and trim meat, and especially to cut poultry.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hand held manually operated conventional scissors have been used for cutting and trimming meat and other food products. Conventional scissors also have been used in a variety of other industries for cutting sheet material, such as cloth, textiles or thin metals. It was necessary for an operator of the conventional scissors to use a relatively large cutting effort and often the operator's wrist was at an unnatural orientation. Repetitive use at such orientation and large cutting effort could cause injury to the operator's wrist. To reduce the effort needed to operate such conventional scissors, power operated shears have been devised.
Most known power operated hand held shears have various shortcomings. For example, most such shears do not have a similar physical arrangement to conventional scissors, the blade movement cannot be controlled to the same extent and in the same way as conventional manually powered shears, the blades are not easily replaced and the blades, if replaceable, are not reliably retained in the shears to withstand repeated heavy loading.
Thus, a need exists for power operated or power assisted cutting shears that are arranged, operated and controlled in a manner similar to that of conventional manually-operated scissors, and have easily replaceable blades that can withstand the repeated heavy loading that power operated shears used in a commercial setting will encounter.